Conditioning shampoos comprising various combinations of detersive surfactant and hair conditioning agents are known. These shampoo products typically comprise an anionic detersive surfactant in combination with a conditioning agent such as silicone, hydrocarbon oil, fatty esters, or combinations thereof. These shampoos have become more popular among consumers as a means of conveniently obtaining hair conditioning and hair cleansing performance all from a single hair care product.
Many conditioning shampoos, however, do not provide sufficient deposition of conditioning agents onto hair during the shampooing process. Without such deposition, large proportions of conditioning agent are rinsed away during the shampooing process and therefore provide little or no conditioning benefit. Without sufficient deposition of the conditioning agent on the hair, relatively high levels of conditioning agents may be needed in the shampoo composition to provide adequate hair conditioning performance. Such high levels of a conditioning agent can substantially increase raw material cost.
Obtaining good deposition of a conditioning agent onto hair is further complicated by the action of detersive surfactants in the shampoo. Detersive surfactants are designed to carry away or remove, oil, grease, dirt, and particulate matter from the hair and scalp. In doing so, the detersive surfactants can also interfere with deposition of the conditioning agent, and carry away both deposited and non deposited conditioning agent during rinsing. This further reduces deposition of the conditioning agent onto the hair after rinsing, thus further reducing hair conditioning performance.
One known method for improving deposition of a hair conditioning agent onto hair involves the use of certain cationic deposition polymers. These polymers provide improved deposition of the conditioning agent onto hair, and can also inherently provide improved wet hair conditioning independent of such improved deposition. These cationic polymers, however, introduce compatibility problems when formulating with anionic shampoo components, and can also cause wet hair to feel excessively smooth or over conditioned. Moreover, these cationic deposition polymers are most effective when used with smaller particle conditioning agents having an average particle size of less than 5 um, more typically less than about 2 um. Deposition of large particle silicone conditioning systems are not typically improved by the use of cationic polymers.
It has now been found that shampoo compositions containing select ethoxylated fatty alcohols can be used to improve the deposition of a conditioning agent onto hair or skin, without the reliance upon cationic deposition polymers, provided that the hair or skin conditioning agent is in the form of large dispersed particles having an average particle size of at least 5 um. These select ethoxylated fatty alcohols are especially effective at improving deposition of dispersed hair conditioning agents onto hair or skin when used in combination with an anionic detersive surfactant in a shampoo or other surfactant composition. These select fatty alcohol ethoxylates have from about 5 to about 150 moles of ethoxylation, and an attached fatty alcohol moiety having from about 6 to about 30 carbon atoms.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a conditioning shampoo composition for use on hair or skin with improved conditioning performance, and further to provide such a composition with improved deposition of dispersed conditioning agents onto hair or skin without reliance upon cationic deposition polymers, and further to provide such a composition with improved deposition of dispersed conditioning agent particles having an average particle size of from about 5 microns up to about 2000 microns. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a conditioning shampoo composition with improved conditioning performance using select ethoxylated fatty alcohols.